Napier University

Facts & Figures:

Facts & Figures:

Napier University is a modern university with some 13,000 students
occupying three main and several smaller campuses, mostly in the south and west
of Edinburgh. It has
particular strengths in the area of vocationally focused courses. It also has
strong international links, as a result of which has the fourth largest
percentage of foreign students in the UK.

Napier University Business School is one of the largest business
schools at any university in Scotland, and is rated as one of the best business
schools in the UK. Meanwhile the School of Computing at Napier University is
the largest computing department in Scotland. In 2005 it joined with the
Edinburgh College of Art to launch the Screen Academy
Scotland, a new centre of excellence offering practical, project-based,
postgraduate courses in aspects of film making. Other particularly strong
vocational areas lie in subjects as diverse as timber engineering, transport
studies and journalism, as well as on accounting and law.

The University's main campuses are in
Edinburgh at Merchiston,
Craiglockhart and Sighthill. The Merchiston campus is built around
the refurbished shell of Merchiston Castle and houses the sports, science,
mathematics, engineering and computing courses. The Craighouse campus enjoys
panoramic views over city and is home to the social science and communication
arts courses as well as the Ian Tomlin School of Music. The Craiglockhart
campus is the home of the law and business courses and is also marketed as a
conference centre. It has recently benefited from a £24m investment in
the Business School, while the Sighthill campus has undergone a £80
million redevelopment.

University accommodation is available to most first year students
from outside the Edinburgh
area. Napier University's students' union is called the Napier Students'
Association (NSA). This is located on Merchiston Place near the Merchiston
campus.

History

The origins of Napier University date back to the foundation in 1964
of the Napier Technical College. This occupied a campus at Merchiston built
around Merchiston Castle, once the family seat of the Napier family, whose most
prominent member was John
Napier, the influential mathematician who invented logarithms. The college
took his name. In 1966 it became Napier College of Science and Technology and
since 1971 it has offered degree-level courses.

In 1974 Napier merged with the Sighthill-based Edinburgh College of
Commerce to form Napier College of Commerce and Technology, in 1985 becoming a
"Central Institution" with the right to validate and award its own degrees.
Napier College became Napier Polytechnic in 1986 and in the same year acquired
the former hydropathic hospital buildings at Craiglockhart. It became Napier
University in June 1992.